ISIS remains in control of large swaths of both Iraq and Syria, and will probably continue to control significant territory into the next administration. How candidates answer these questions should elucidate how they understand ISIS, the threat it poses, and what strategy the US should pursue.

The White House this week gave some welcome focus to the unhelpful rise of job licenses. In “The land of free markets, tied down by red tape,” the FT’s Gillian Tett notes that issue but also highlights the difficulty in starting a business here, writing: “The entrepreneurial halo is starting to slip…”

Puerto Rico would do well to ignore a recent hedge fund report and to follow instead the Krueger report’s suggestion: press for a reasonable amount of debt relief from bondholders as an important part of an adjustment program.